Saturday, May 30, 2009

More Bike Maintenance

I did a little work on the bike this afternoon before going on a short ride. I put on a RAM mount bracket to hold my portable GPS unit. Brad from Barrow had ordered several extra parts and pieces so I bought the necessary bits from him. He has the same unit, Garmin GPSMAP 60Csx, which is a great unit. It has street maps for North America as well as a built in compass to show direction even when you are standing still and a barometric altimeter. I think that this is the first accessory (aka farkle)I've put on the bike. I checked the fit of a rear rack just to convince myself that the stock side carriers don't work. I will start looking for the correct Reynolds parts on Ebay. No rush. I ordered some rear shocks to replace the really worn out units. I've read that the stock units rarely lasted this long anyway. The problem I may have is that if it raises the ride height of the bike by much, it will be difficult for me to reach the ground at stops. Hopefully it won't be not be much of a problem.

After I got it all back together, I took a short ride and ended up needing to fill up the tank. It wasn't quite empty but there is a bike ride to the Monderosa scheduled right after church tomorrow. I missed the ride last year since I was in Barrow. I am a bit nervous since I have never rode as part of a group before. I'm still not real confident in the corners so I will probably be the slowest one out there.